The Wrong Girl

  And, of course, that was the start of more trouble than I could handle.

  3

  Poppy Continues

  The dogs came out of the back of Jack’s pickup squealing and barking and yapping their heads off. I don’t know who was more excited—us or them.

  Luckily, it was near closing time. So there was no one in this back hall to try to stop us. We couldn’t really stop the dogs anyway. They followed each other, tails waving furiously, into the mall, toenails clicking on the marble floor, directly into the pet store.

  Jeremy held the store door open. We barely had to herd them. They seemed to know exactly where they were supposed to go. They were mostly a shaggy mess. Some big dogs, shepherd mixes or something, I don’t really know dogs. One huge black one with clumps of fur almost down to the floor, was the size of a small horse. There were small ones, too, squeaking and clucking, scraggly creatures, not cute.

  I heard screams from inside the store. I guess Mr. McNulty was catching on to what was happening. Manny couldn’t stop laughing. He had his phone held high and was recording the stampede of dogs. I heard howls and a crash, and McNulty was cursing his head off now.

  Ivy and I followed the last dog into the store in time to see the big black dog rise up and knock McNulty over. I heard glass shatter. It was a long, narrow store. Jack’s dogs were squeezed in the aisle. And then it got noisier as some of the pet-store dogs broke out and came running to join the party, and their barks and howls of joy drowned out McNulty’s curses.

  “Check that out!” Manny bumped my shoulder from behind and pointed. A large gray mutt had managed to chew open a big bag of dog food, and the dogs were going nuts—they must have been hungry—clawing and pouncing on each other, yapping and squealing, desperate to join in the dinner party as the meaty brown bits tumbled from the bag.

  McNulty was lost behind a mountain of dogs. A tall wooden stool had been knocked over and lay on its side in the aisle. Dogs had climbed onto the front counter. More pet-store dogs came running from a back room. I have no idea how they escaped. Had the newcomers set them free?

  I heard another crash as dogs knocked over a tall pile of plastic food dishes. Dogs were fighting now, snarling and snapping at each other to get to the open food bag.

  The sound was deafening, but I could still hear the store owner cursing and screaming. “I’m calling 911! I’m calling 911! I’m calling the police!”

  I couldn’t stop laughing. It was just so insane! Like one of those ancient silent comedies my dad had showed me when I was little.

  Manny was laughing, too. Jeremy had his hands over his ears. Maybe he’s allergic to loud noises, too. Ivy had picked up one of the white puppies from the front window and was cuddling it against her.

  Manny stopped recording and lowered his phone. He turned to Jack, who had a broad smile frozen on his face. “Are we done here?”

  “Yep,” Jack said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Hey—what about the dogs?” I had to shout over the squeals and barks.

  “Not our problem,” Jack said. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the front door. The others scattered. Ivy and Jeremy started to jog to the other end of the mall, where Jeremy had parked. I looked for Keith. I’d actually forgotten about him. Had he just gone home and left us?

  “You need a ride?” Jack asked.

  And that’s how I ended up in his truck. But how I ended up kissing him, wrapped in his arms . . . Well . . . I’m not sure how that happened.

  He was making the truck roar, showing off its speed, making it slide, as we headed to my house up near River Ridge. I knew he was showing off for me. He didn’t say much. I think he thinks that’s part of what makes him so cool. He’s quiet and mysterious. Those silver-gray eyes always seem to be far away, like he’s thinking of important things, like he’s not entirely with you.

  That’s what I thought, riding home with him. And when he parked at the bottom of my driveway and slid his arms around my shoulders and pulled me against him, I hesitated. “I have a boyfriend,” I said, but it came out in a shaky voice I didn’t recognize.

  “That’s cool,” he whispered. Then he pressed his mouth against mine, and I didn’t think about Keith for a minute.

  4

  Poppy Continues

  My sister, Heather, was waiting for me inside the house.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  She followed me to my room, waving her phone in one hand.

  If you saw us standing side by side, you’d never guess we were sisters, and you’d never guess we’re just a year apart. Heather is one year younger. She looks like Dad, and I look like Mom.

  (When our parents split up, I think Heather wanted to go live with Dad. But the court wouldn’t allow it.)

  I’m small and thin and, I guess, dainty, if that’s still a word. I’m not sure anyone says that. As I’ve said, I’m fair-skinned with pale-blue eyes and lots of freckles around my nose, and I have bobbing curls of straw-blond hair. Heather is nearly six inches taller than I am. She isn’t fat or anything, but . . . well . . . she’s big. Strong. Could probably take on some of the Shadyside basketball team if she had to.

  She has short straight black hair that she keeps buzzed on one side, and a round face with big dark eyes. She hates having to wear glasses. She says it makes her look like a giant owl. I wish she wasn’t always so down on herself, because she’s actually very cute. But she’s the poster girl for Low Self-Esteem. Seriously.

  Heather had an oversized gray sweatshirt pulled down over black tights. Her hair was brushed to one side so that it looked like she’d been out in a strong wind.

  I lifted Mr. Benjamin, my pet rabbit, from his cage, carried him to my bed, and set him down in my lap. I petted the soft fur on his back, and he wiggled his ears to show he liked it.

  My mom is allergic to dogs, so Mr. Benjamin was a compromise. But he’s a good pet, very sweet and quiet, and petting him always calms me down.

  Heather, I could see, was not calm. She stood in the middle of my room, waving her phone. “I saw it,” she said. Her eyes flashed behind her glasses. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or excited or what.

  I squinted at her. “Saw it?”

  She nodded. “The pet-store video. On Instagram. I watched the whole thing.”

  I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. I could still taste Jack’s lips on mine, and I felt kind of jumpy. I mean, the adrenaline was rushing, and I kept thinking about how nice the whole thing was, even though it shouldn’t have happened.

  “It was funny, right?” I prompted her.

  “You could have taken me with you,” she said. She set the phone down on my dresser and crossed her arms in front of her. “I like to have fun, too, you know.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. I could see this discussion was about to start up all over again. Believe me, it wasn’t the first time. I could recite this conversation word for word.

  “When I went to the mall, I didn’t know—” I started.

  She didn’t let me finish. “I asked you at dinner if I could come,” she said, her voice becoming tight, almost choked. “I practically begged you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Heather, please. Do we have to have this discussion again? What do I always tell you?”

  Behind the glasses, her dark eyes narrowed in anger. “That I have to have my own friends.”

  “Right,” I said. “You can’t—”

  “But that’s crap,” she snapped, practically spitting the words. I saw her cheeks darkening to pink. “I’m only a year younger than you, and you treat me like I’m a baby.”

  “But—”

  “Or you just ignore me completely.”

  “That’s not true!” I cried, jumping to my feet. I placed Mr. Benjamin back in his cage. “I hang out with you all the time, Heather.”

  “Liar.”

  “I took you with me to see Hamlet at the Martinsville Town Center last week.”

  She ut
tered a bitter laugh. “Only because none of your friends wanted to go with you. You even asked Rose Groban to go with you—and you hate Rose Groban.”

  Her chest heaved up and down as she started to breathe hard. Her face was a dark red now, nearly purple. Heather knows how to be angry. It’s kind of her hobby. Scowling, she started to pace back and forth, her sneakers thudding on the carpet.

  “What exactly are you saying?” I demanded. “That every time I go somewhere with friends, I have to ask you along? Are you saying that my friends have to be your friends, too?”

  “No. I—I—I—” she sputtered. “I’m just saying that I like to have fun, too. Your friends all know me. You could ask me to come with you. Sometimes you could ask me, you know?”

  “But what about your friends?” I demanded. I knew I should shut up. I should stop this dumb shouting match. I knew I couldn’t win it. So why was I keeping it going? “Your friends—”

  “I don’t have any friends!” Heather screamed. She grabbed a big silver trophy off my bookshelf, my Drama Club trophy from last year. I gasped as she pulled her arm back—and heaved the trophy across the room.

  We both screamed as the trophy whirred past my head, smashed into the wall behind me—and stuck there. She had heaved it so hard, it stuck in the plaster!

  I stood there in shock, staring at my sister, my heart doing flip-flops, my hands pressed against my cheeks. I could barely breathe.

  It was the first time . . . the first time I realized that Heather could be dangerous.

  5

  Poppy Continues

  “See? We are going to be famous,” Ivy said.

  I shifted my phone to the other ear and continued brushing my hair. “Why? What are you talking about?”

  “Our pet-store video. Over ten thousand views. And Manny told me BuzzFeed picked it up.”

  “Wow.” To be honest, I wasn’t thinking about becoming famous. I was thinking about Jack . . . his arms around me . . . kissing him that night.

  “What should we do next?” Ivy said. “We need to start a channel.”

  I set the hairbrush down. “No time. I have to go. I have the play audition.”

  “Break a leg,” Ivy said, and clicked off.

  Taking a deep breath, I checked myself out in the mirror and headed downstairs.

  I have a lot of confidence in myself as an actress. I know I have some good skills. Mom let me take private acting lessons at the Players Theater School in Garden Grove, even though they were expensive, and I think I learned a lot there.

  But, no matter how much confidence you have, auditions always make you nervous. A few minutes later, as I made my way down the aisle to the front of the auditorium at school, my hands were icy and damp, and I definitely felt my heart jumping around in my chest like it was playing leapfrog.

  (I have to remember that image for a poem.)

  Mr. Gregory is the Drama Club adviser at Shadyside High. We all call him Mr. G. He wrote an original play for our annual presentation. It’s a horror-thriller called Don’t Go There! It’s mainly about six teenagers trapped in an abandoned hotel, and some kind of supernatural being starts haunting them and taking them out one by one.

  I was trying out for the part of Becka Hastings. Becka is the smartest girl in the group. She’s kind of the leader, and she’s the one who discovers the secret of the old hotel.

  I liked this role because Becka is smart and funny, but she also gets to scream a lot. I’d practiced screaming in my room for several days and, even though I had my door closed, I’d managed to drive my mom and sister nuts, and they had to beg me to shut up. When it comes to theater, I dive into the deep end. No shallow waters for me.

  I’d memorized all of Becka’s lines, the whole part. And I knew I could do an awesome audition for Mr. G, but, of course, there was Rose Groban, my rival, my comic-book archenemy, the evil Rose Groban, who didn’t even pretend to be my friend.

  Rose always acts as if she pities me. Not sure why. She gets this superior look on her face, and then everything she says is ironic and passive-aggressive and said with a kind of indulgent chuckle, like I’m a child she is forced to put up with.

  Yes, there was Rose Groban. And what role would she want to pounce on? Becka Hastings, of course. So here we were, trapped in this endless competition, as we had been ever since she transferred to Shadyside in fourth grade.

  As I made my way down the aisle, I counted about twenty kids ready to audition for Don’t Go There! They filled the first three rows of the auditorium. Some were talking quietly. A few were on their phones. Others were reading scripts. Mr. G stood on the stage in front of the tall purple curtain, adjusting a floor microphone, so I guessed we would have to go up there and audition in front of all the others when our names were called.

  I took a seat at the end of the fourth row, and Rose Groban appeared at my side instantly, as if by black magic. Did I mention that she is beautiful? Really. A stunner. Just gorgeous, as my mother would say. (And has said.)

  She has round brown eyes and beautiful long lashes, a broad forehead, a perfect nose, high cheekbones like a fashion model, skin as smooth as milk, a smile bright enough to see in the dark, and cascades of wavy black hair, perfect hair that tumbles over her shoulders and nearly halfway down her back, somehow always in place.

  She’s beautiful, and now she was standing in the aisle, one hand on the back of my chair, gazing down at me. “Poppy, I saw the pet-store video,” she said. “What were you thinking?”

  “It . . . was a joke,” I said. “You know. Supposed to be funny.”

  “Yes. Funny,” she repeated, as if she’d never heard that word before. She tossed her hair back. “Well, all I kept thinking was, I hope Poppy takes a shower after handling all those ugly stray mutts. Who knows what kind of diseases they were carrying.”

  “Hey, thanks for thinking of me,” I said. Sometimes I try to be as sarcastic as Rose, but I don’t always pull it off.

  “I’m feeling good about the audition,” Rose said, even though I hadn’t asked. “I did a quick script run-through at breakfast this morning. But I didn’t want to over-rehearse, you know? I mean, I like to feel loose and spontaneous up there.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Her eyes narrowed with sudden concern. “Poppy, what’s your second choice? Which role do you want if you don’t get Becka? I mean, I’ll probably get Becka. So what other role do you think you’d like? I was thinking about it because I was concerned about you. And I think Gretchen, the weird old lady, might be an exciting challenge for you. Something you could get the most out of.”

  Was she kidding me? The old lady? The lamest part in the play? Gretchen doesn’t even appear until the last ten minutes!

  I laughed out loud.

  “I was just thinking you don’t want to be too disappointed,” Rose said. “You should definitely have an alternate plan. You know. Just in case.”

  “Rose, I know what you were thinking,” I said.

  That made her blink.

  Onstage, Mr. G tapped the microphone. “People, I believe we’re all here. Let’s get started. I’m going to audition the role of Becka Hastings first. I need you all to listen and watch carefully. Put your phones away, please. And don’t be nervous, everyone. You’re among friends. You can feel the support in the room, can’t you?”

  Not with Rose standing over me. No, I thought, I don’t feel the support, Mr. G.

  Mr. G shielded his eyes from the bright lights with one hand and surveyed the rows of kids. “Poppy?”

  I jumped when I heard my name.

  “Poppy? Want to audition first?”

  I climbed to my feet. I felt my heart leap up into my throat. To my surprise, Rose didn’t step back. She blocked my way to the aisle.

  “Rose—?”

  She lowered her head and brought her lips close to my ear. “One more thing,” she said in a raspy whisper. “I don’t mean to be unsubtle. But stay away from Jack. He’s not your type.”

  H
er words caught me by surprise. My script fell from my hands and hit the floor. I felt my throat tighten and started to choke. To hide my shock, I bent down and collected the script.

  Get it together, Poppy.

  I knew I was overreacting, but her warning had just been so unexpected.

  Had she seen us together in his truck? Or had she only seen us together in the pet-store video?

  I was still fluttery when I climbed onto the stage, and I kept clearing my throat as I stepped up to Mr. G. I tried to push Rose’s words from my mind. I mean, what was the big deal, really? Why should I be so surprised that Rose would say something nasty to me?

  “I’ll read the part of Christopher,” Mr. G said. “Let’s start on page six. Where they first step into the house.”

  I took a deep breath and flipped through the pages of the script. You can do this, Poppy. You’ve practiced enough. A low hiccup escaped my throat.

  Mr. G squinted at me. “Do you need water?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m okay.” I glanced down from the stage. All eyes were on me. Rose was leaning against the auditorium wall, the only one not sitting down. I guessed she was getting ready to audition next. Or maybe she just wanted me to see her there watching me.

  My stomach gurgled. I wondered if Mr. G could hear it.

  He began, reading the part of Christopher: “This old house has to be haunted. Any house with cobwebs like this has to be haunted, right?”

  “I hope you’re right, Christopher,” I read. “I’ve always wanted to see a poltergeist.”

  Mr. G raised his eyes from his script. “The word is pol-ter-geist, Poppy.”

  I blinked. “I know. What did I say?”

  “You said pollergeist.”

  I caught the smile on Rose’s face. A few kids whispered in the seats below me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Do-over?”

  We started again, but I didn’t get much better. I knew even as I was acting up there that I was totally screwing up. And when it came time for me to shriek in horror at the end of the scene, a cough interrupted my scream.